Last Thursday marked exactly two years since Daily Maverick published the first of what was to become an extensive series of investigative reports into the Digital Vibes scandal. On 23 February 2021, we revealed that Tahera Mather, then health minister Zweli Mkhize’s long-time spin doctor, had been scoring payments as a consultant to Digital Vibes, an obscure little company that sat with a lucrative communications contract from Mkhize’s national Department of Health (DoH).
In the months that followed, our reporting peeled the layers off the dubious deal, revealing that Mather was in fact the mastermind behind Digital Vibes.
Crucially, we also illustrated in painstaking detail that Mkhize and his family had pocketed nearly R9-million in funds laundered from the contract.
The deal ended up draining R150-million from the department’s coffers.
As far as arrests and prosecutions go, however, there has been very little to celebrate.
So far, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has managed to charge only one mid-level official from the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (Misa), an entity within the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
In 2018, when Mkhize was still in charge of Cogta, Digital Vibes scored a smaller communications contract from Misa.
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